A rainbow of crops fills farmer Abbey Innes’ table at the Columbia Farmers Market: tomatoes, squash, garlic, kale and flower bouquets — all from her and her husband’s 15-acre farm in Howard County.

But for a few markets last year, the table was a bit emptier.

“We planted hundreds of pounds of seed potatoes and got 10 inches of rain within 10 days,” she said. “And they drowned; they rotted.”

Farming is risky business, and crop insurance helps keep farmers paid when something goes wrong. A few years ago, Innes tried to see if she could get her farm insured. But the agent told her she didn’t have enough of any one particular crop to qualify for insurance.

That’s because she purposefully farms “with the land,” and to her that means farming a variety of crops. Research indicates diverse far

See Full Page